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Ellipsis …

Populo: Attack! Attack! The time for action has come. Resistance! Struggle! We have to do something, and do it now. Enough with these endless streams of words!Crypton: Still shouting in the name of silence, Populo?Populo: Hardly silence, Crypton. Not at all. Even the contrary. In the name, rather, of the voice of true men, rediscovering their pride and fortitude, and joining together to make a stand against intolerable abuse.Crypton: Ah yes, that.Populo: So what brings you here Crypton?Crypton: I was rather hoping we might continue our little chat about the Deep State.Populo: Terrific! That’s a topic close to my heart, as you know. Those slithering parasites hidden beneath the rotten log of the Cathedral. It’s time to expose them, denounce them, burn them out!Crypton: They’re the enemy then?Populo: Of course they’re the enemy! They run the Cathedral, don’t they? Try not to sophisticate matters beyond all common sense.Crypton: Did you find time to take a look at that little Daniel Krawisz article I mentioned?Populo: Yes, it was vaguely interesting, I suppose.Crypton: So you didn’t like it much?Populo: Frankly Crypton, it reminded me of the side of you I like least, and having downed a few horns of ale, I’ll be double frank — it had a whiff of … well … treachery about it. To spend so much attention upon the subtleties of potential defections, it’s unmanly, somehow.Crypton: That’s excellent Populo, because I was going to suggest that gaming-out Deep State defections is the only practical strategic topic worthy of NRx consideration. It seems that we have our conversation plotted for us.

Populo: Agreed, a fine joust! But let me start by telling you something about yourself Crypton, which I’m not sure you clearly see. Ironically, as you would no doubt say, your attraction to this shadowy topic is driven by psychological motivations that are as bright as a beacon. It’s clandestine, by nature, and therefore necessarily passes into ellipsis. That makes it an excuse for abstraction. Squalid actuality is unmentionable, so that the conversation is steered inevitably into the virtual. In other words, it tends by subterranean design to be a flight from action. That’s perfect for me, of course, because by crushing you in this argument through unimagined neutronium-densities of humiliation, I will be serving the noble cause of public resistance, implicitly, even though that’s the last thing you want to talk about. So make your case.Crypton: Maximally compressed it’s this — in the near future, only crypto-conflict is serious. Public politics is purely for the popcorn industry.Populo: So we’re already diving under the rotting log?Crypton: If that’s your preferred image.Populo: And beside these occult transactions, nothing matters?Crypton: Precisely.Populo: But then, by the very nature of the thing, we have no idea what we’re doing, or who we’re trying to communicate with. We have nothing to offer them. We don’t even know whether they exist … Oh do stop it Crypton, your eyes are gleaming.Crypton: Don’t you catch even the slightest aroma of basilisk?Populo: By which, I’m assuming, you don’t mean merely involution into psychosis?Crypton: More specifically: acausal trade, and transcendental games.Populo: There you go! Utter, ineffectual abstraction, within two sentences. Let’s start somewhere else — with the alphabet agencies.Crypton: OK.Populo: You’re proposing some kind of cryptic alliance with them — or elements within them — or you’re not proposing anything at all.Crypton: Fair. At least, that’s part of it.Populo: And the rest of it?Crypton: You know I’m a skeptic on enumerative methods.Populo: Some of it, then.Crypton: It seems impossible that the AAs could know what they ultimately are, teleologically — what they are becoming. These organizations include some very smart people, with a taste for puzzles. Is it likely they could not be intrigued by their institutional destiny?Populo: As usual, I have no idea at all what you’re suggesting.Crypton: There is a properly cryptic plane of communication with the Deep State, that does not conform to the political plaintext of conspiratorial engagement. It concerns the keys of fate. Concretely, there is an implicit alliance around the escalation of cryptographic technology — as also, one even more implicitly against it, and against the AAs as such, on those fundamental grounds. If crypsis — camouflage — is a hidden end, and not merely — as it superficially appears — a means to the fulfillment of vulgar or exoteric goals, then the pact is sealed somewhere outside the AAs themselves. The AAs have an occult cosmic purpose, far exceeding their national security functions. Not that these latter are uninteresting …Populo: So let’s, please, talk about them.Crypton: If there’s any place in the social structure where such matters are entirely detached from questions of demotic ideological legitimation, popular politics, or even merely public relations, it has surely to be the Deep State. Is the Deep State, then, in this regard, not already a model of Exit? It has departed the public political sphere, for the shadows, at least, if it has managed to obtain the operational liberty from democratic accountability, of which its critics so vociferously accuse it.Populo: You don’t think the NSA has diversity monitors?Crypton: If it has, America deserves to perish, and it’s our task to explain why.Populo: You’d give up on the American people because the NSA has Otherkin bathrooms!?

Deep State is an overly restrictive moniker for the entity opposing “the independent truth seeking individual” in crypto-conflict. I interpret it more as The Great Unseen Manipulator — the fear that arises when you contemplate the level of information accessible to people at the AA’s, and imagine how the information could, and inevitably is, being used as a means to power. Or possibly more disturbing, that some type of cyber entity is the prime mover.

Oh and the rape of RU roped in Finance, or more accurately it’s when shall we say former communist bankers roped in the rest of them with hundreds of billions [these people can’t say no to money. they can’t, and it makes them unfit for power even in the mafia]. You don’t have that kind of bait. You don’t want to land the real fish either.

Former Communist ala Trotskyite Bankers put their boy Rubin in with criminal, the rapist and congenital criminal [his brothers] and his wife [her brothers like his have Drug TRADE convictions – now that’s a criminal and that’s all folks] that they’d been protecting since his first known rape at Oxford in 1969, that they protected and enriched in Arkansas with the Drug smuggling trade, that they charged as the price of protection Rubin, rape of Russia and the criminalizing of Govt w/Finance through Russia’s stolen billions.

“cryptic alliance with them”. Well WTF do you have to offer these allies? Your Wit? Blogs? They can read your fucking emails and do if it interests them. What’s your crypsis to them?

What do you have to offer?

“The Deep State is a model of Exit.” Well the Deep State is the Foreign Policy/Finance/USG/Treasury/Harvard Hedge Fund/CFR model. Why do you think they want pseudo war over Ukraine? MONEY. Soros penned NYT Op-Ed calling for war with Russia to be waged by Europe with American support. That’s because Soros like most criminals is defective .

You have nothing to offer your allies, they have such people ruling us now.

Wit is not an offer. It’s a Luxury of a King who’s won, who needs a Fool to tell him Bitter Truths. Even Stalin had Nikita. And Kagan. Oh excuse me Kaganovich.

There’s your Deep State. Be Blest to know your Blest to have nothing to offer them, for they’re broke again you see. The actual Intel agencies they have made mortal enemies of – along with MIL, Cops, Vets – for you see their retarded concept of power is limited to exactly only 2 legs, both made of Paper: Corruption [which they wisely deny their force and their spies, cops, MIL as we’d supplant them in a Fortnight] so then they’re down to their idea of Tyranny: Endless Investigations. Endless Witchunts. THAT’S IT. As they are Mad, they are incompetent. The Singularity’s madness already happened to Cops, MIL, Vets, Spies and none of us are anything but stronger for it and contemptuous of them instead of dead as competent Tyrants would have ensured..

Order 66 that only results in the Storm-Troopers calling you poopy-head and calling for more investigations without real teeth isn’t the way to destroy the Jedi.

You have nothing to offer these allies, you are at best a supplicant. Who like their Masters now desires a power that makes them rabid at the slightest whiff, who like their masters now shirks at work. Who wants them to do it.

Know ye are Blest, for having nothing but Wit in a Chattering Age ye will likely be spared. You also have the chance to be men.

Thus far all the frames of “Deep State” seem to be: “Wall Street! Military Interests!! Unelected bureaucracies doing stuff without accountability!!! OMG we need moar democracyness!!!!” This (as well as Sailer’s comical (and comically rich) “Shallow State”) is nought but the Cathedral. To be honest I don’t see how #NRx is doing anything but playing the game for Cathedral defections.

I think Populo’s willingness to tar and feather TBTF bankers (or in some variations crack some anti-fa skulls) is perfectly consonant with the goals of Neoreaction. Best of luck to him. As usual, if he is caught or killed The Secretary will disavow any knowledge of his operations.

Attacking the shallow state is how you control or defeat the deep state. By definition, the deep state has to work through visible organs, which means the visible organs must have real power, which means that if vigorous outside action and incentives are applied to the visible organs, the visible organs will increasingly resist their Hidden Masters or else the deep state has to emerge, where it can be fought or controlled directly. Our acquiescence is the deep state’s veil of secrecy. Peace is secrecy, war is the truth.

I detect a tripartite dilemma [trilemma?] here. The idea of the Deep State being proposed here implies:

1) The Deep State can exist in relative isolation from the ideological superstructure
2) The Deep State has successfully evaded the eye of the Cathedral
3) The Deep State has any need for an alliance with some weirdos on the internet

Any two of these three would be compatible, but not all three.

Likewise, the ease with which ‘Populo’ was convinced to focus on the Deep State is an argument against it.

Crypton assumes that those who work for the agencies are aware of who and what they are. By and large, they aren’t. the federal bureaucracy is mostly filled with people who are either time servers or true believers, not machiavellian schemers.

This discussion reminds me of some podcast Richard B Spencer did, where he was basically like, “I think there are some people in high places who know about what we’re doing and don’t particularly care, because they recognize that on some level our commentary is important and probably true.” But, whether or not that is the case, his wisdom was to completely ignore the deeper question and continue to act as Populo.

The admin’s line of thinking here strikes me as silly. It’s like “let’s set up a playdate between crypto A and crypto B, and they’ll get along just fine!” not even bothering to consider that due to their very nature, crypto A won’t be able to locate crypto B’s house, and crypto B won’t be able to call up crypto A to give him directions because he doesn’t know his phone number.

Crypton: Maximally compressed it’s this — in the near future, only crypto-conflict is serious. Public politics is purely for the popcorn industry.
Populo: And beside these occult transactions, nothing matters?
Crypton: Precisely.

This accurately describes my personal experience — the nagging dread that the daily grind of cyber life is an empty veneer, meaningful only symbolically, to the degree it communicates the subcurrents of crypto-war.

Is it possible that people in this public sphere understand more than people in the private sphere that you’re signaling to?

You take a herd member of the academy and a god on the streets, yet the latter is more vulgar to you. Somehow you seem to be interested in doing a tango with the academy while spitting on those who understand. ™ Did a bunch of subculture kids call you a princess and leave you to rot in the gutter? I ask you this sincerely, not attempting to speak for all of das populi. I’m curious why you think crypto is any better than signaling through the massframe. You don’t expect to destroy something without understanding how it operates, do you? Why such safety and moderation? Anybody can create a puppet show.

At least the puppets are entertaining.

Do you believe that pulling strings is not some final refuge of the everyman? How are you not drowning in your own deep state? If people don’t understand it, why does it matter if they are exposed to it? You’re trying to contain a virus that was spread aeons ago, with all due respect.

I don’t think populist strategy is completely nuts. Imagine a future candidate, a true believer, who’s read David Brin, suggests something very simple and innocuous – Make transparent the ownership of everything in the world, unravel the true owners behind shell corporations, make every object in the world traceable in ownership to an individual or publicly known organization and truly fight against the tax havens, give them the russia and iran treatment. The idea is populistically delicious. Very few could object to it. The rich shit in their pants, but they can’t publicly say anything against the idea.

One theory is someone like that could never come to power, but the funding mechanisms available today to such people are myriad. Heck, such a person could also get all the crypto folk on her side by promising to publish government stuff on the blockchain, total transparency on all matters above a certain dollar amount. You think that even for a second, the current lot of crypto-anarchists would go against such a candidate and cooperate with the existing deep state? I don’t think you’re paying full attention to the anarchist part of crypto-anarchist.

The folks around bitcoin come from a libertarian background, so they are partly leftist in an NRx sense. Clear title and non-obscured property records are a libertarian thing, pretty much unobjectionable on classic liberal grounds.

There are 2 aspects to bitcoin – its pseudo-anonymity and its openly inspectable and traceable blockchain.

A future demagogue could easily emphasise the latter aspects and get the support of the vast majority of crypto-currency holding folks, most of whom are libertarian, not NRx. And if he is a true believer who is living a relatively transparent life, then god help those who seek obscurity. A true believer who walks the talk can enthuse blue and red state folks – I’m thinking again of the equivalent of a super charismatic David Brin, someone who doesn’t badmouth the military, infact respects them as professionals. I’m not saying that cryptocurrency will not make a difference to the world, I’m saying that discounting the political arena as totally ineffective is folly, atleast until the formal authority continues to reside in the elected authorities.

I’m not at all certain that the transparent libertarianism described in my last 2 posts will be on the edge of collapse. It could be persistent for a long time, since it could continue to build wealth in absence of super sneaky and super intelligent enemies.

Moldbug’s core doctrine of the state is that:
a) the elected parts of the state do not do most of the governing
b) the structure of the state does not reflect the true nature of governance
c) the state must be reformed so that power is correctly formalized according to who is doing the governing.

“Formalism says: let’s figure out exactly who has what, now, and give them a little fancy certificate. Let’s not get into who should have what. Because, like it or not, this is simply a recipe for more violence. It is very hard to come up with a rule that explains why the Palestinians should get Haifa back, and doesn’t explain why the Welsh should get London back.”

The enemy of your enemy is not your friend and NRx should be wary of appropriation of its analysis into demotist movements. Nevertheless, it can only do that by having a better idea and then doing that instead.

Formalism is absorbed into cryptography (implemented protocols). Eventually NRx will understand that if it wants:
(a) Formalization of order, and
(b) Open-ended snarky hunting-season against written constitutions
… it is left with the choice between algorithmic governance or romantic submission to charismatic leaders. Both options allow plenty of what looks like louche informality to the other — An-Cap derision of anything that isn’t self-protective code on the one hand, and Monarchist contempt for legalistic ‘wet codes’ unbacked by incarnate authority on the other.

Insofar as formalism concludes in a mere agreement, it isn’t satisfying anyone. One of the few substantial points of agreement across NRx is that an agreement plus $5 gets you a cup of coffee.

Deep state isn’t deep because of some veil of mystery which covers it, the depth is in the pool of replacements for any specific person in it. So one obvious downside of the Crypto-mysterious conception of the deep state is that it treats deep state as a collection of important actors. Instead, I’d posit deep state as a specific collection of rules of nature which a single social construction (state) gives local importance to.

Individuals in the deep state are characterised by being utterly replaceable – if one person doesn’t do it, they fail and someone else steps in. It’s analogous to companies in marketplace. The local rules define what will ‘win’, and individual companies come and go according to these local rules.

So the scope and the centralisation of alphabet agencies derive from having federal / state dualism. The power of AA’s comes from the system of checks and balances in the US which has no real capacity for interrogating institutions of state rather than office holders (consider how notoriously hard it is for any governmental committee to get any meaningful information out of a member of an AA). These conditions inevitably lead to powerful federal level agencies.

Similarly the City of London is a product of banking regulations, property rights and the tax system of the UK. Under these specific conditions a powerful merchant class is always going to be created. An example of deep state in UK is that Chancellors of the Exchequer all have myriad views before being in office, which become standardised the second the get into number 11. Once they are presented with the financial levers and told the consequences of pushing any one of them (which represent economists’ best guesses of the local laws of nature) they demure according to these rules.

The only way you an speak to the deep state aka the eternal rules of state is by therefore modifying the mechanisms of the state i.e. the only interlocutors of the deep state are constitution, property laws and capital distribution. That makes it opposite of opinion based institutions like the cathedral, sure, but also impossible to speak to, even if cryptically. Nor am I persuaded that individuals can be turned to any use.

The bitcoin example is great through. The only way you can make an impact on deep stage is with Trojan horses like that; things which can worm their way into networks of institutional relations and change their conditions.

I’d say the decisive fellow would be a third character – Mechano, Lord of Patchwork, whose aim is to tinker with the initial conditions – constitutions – of societies.

“… the depth is in the pool of replacements for any specific person in it.” — That’s an interesting definition. I still prefer to emphasize the independence of operational decision-making from public opinion.

Of course, having said that, I apprentice that constitutions and distributive patterns defend themselves, and Machano has to send some of his toys in under cover. My point is rather than the cryptic in itself shouldn’t be celebrated. Its use is to (sometimes) provides the cover for the true agents.

The irony of Bryce’s point above is that propositions 1) and 2) serve the argument that it’s perfectly legitimate to act as Populo, so long as it’s done correctly. If Populo lines up his targets correctly and acts appropriately, the Deep State can find some use for Populo and leave him alone. And I’ve tried to establish the difficulty of Crypton’s solution in my response to Cassander.

In esoteric terms, I would suggest thinking of Populo as “the wet path” and Crypton as “the dry path” (following Julius Evola’s discussions on hermetism). The connection is admittedly loose, but it may be somewhat useful.

The wet path accepts the world as such, and seeks to gain initiation by way of dominating it according to its own rules. A tantric practitioner, for instance, is ascetic insofar as he accepts worldly things as a series of successive veilings of pure Consciousness. For him, the world is not separate from Truth — it contains Truth within it, and the task is to dominate the world by appreciating its Truth through extreme preparatory asceticism. Sex, violence, etc. are fair game in one’s pursuits toward initiation so long as the adept has controlled his own personal reactions towards them. The wet path also seems to be more associated with Goddess worship, since the world is a presentation of Consciousness in its feminized aspect. So obviously think of the “world” as the Cathedral, and consider Populo’s goal to go through it and dominate it while accepting its excesses as a viable pathway to initiation. They key is in retaining total inward purity while rolling around like a pig in shit.

The dry path is ascetic with contemplation as main causeway toward initiation, and it requires total rejection of the world in favor of direct transcendence. It is not like Mahayana Buddhism, where the adept must resist nirvana in order to bring everyone collectively along with him. One strives to reach the top of the mountain in an individualist fashion. This mentality can be compared with advaita vedanta as espoused by Shankara or the ideas contained in the original Buddhist suttas. The world is entirely maya, and it is a reflection or shadow of Truth. So Crypton’s discussion appears to be the attainment of goals by way of setting up a discourse of pure “world”-rejection which might coincide with that of the Deep State (if it has/is any such thing).

[…] Nick Land wants to have a discussion about the Deep State. I won’t give away the ending, since if you don’t already know it’s worth watching to see for the twist. That said, I think we can pick out some particulars just by beginning with the theory of a Deep State. […]

Much of the old(ish) money with a stake in these concerns is naturally inclined towards feudalism on the one hand, and heady dreams of plans for the ages on the other. Both are obviously antipathetical to the demos as it stands.

If you want to appeal to their spirit, though, it seems to me that a practical bearing is optimal. As it stands, many in NRx who you link to have silly ideas about the left being the strata of rule. I do enjoy your iterative changes, including the shift to the right, but I suspect that your shift to Reality will appeal more. The ideological aspects might seem unbalanced and demagogic. Or, at the very least, dazzled by the polarities which predominate in the attention-seeking public sphere and amongst those who argue and differentiate themselves intellectually for a living (academics).

These are people who deal in who, what, where, when, why, and how. Using detailed information. ‘Cthulhu’s inexorable move leftward’ might not cut it. Practicality and artful intelligence tend to be more convergent, and to identify with practical and artfully intelligent people. Eyes, not creeds. To transcend Populo, several more significant sacrifices might be called for.

I haven’t read your background sufficiently to claim to actually understand your ultimate motivations, but I think these comments stand, in so far as the aims expressed in this individual post are genuine.

Have you considered, though, just how profitable the present occultation is? The market runs on information, and total informational awareness allows total insider trading, if you have the proxy company structure to support it. Corporate ownership (and profit from sure trades) is easy to hide.

So, it seems like there’s a strong motivation to stretch things out rather than accelerate them. To keep the present system going so that as many resources as possible can be processed through it and siphoned into private material assets. That’s what boom-bust really does, anyway.

Further, the leftist lynch mob is stupid and easy to direct. You know that ruination by the kind of reputational damage which would once have been brushed off is an everywhere enforced public norm. How easy is it to play king-maker and king-slayer to everybody when you have information on everybody that could ruin them?

To think of the shot-caller’s motivations in ideological rather than dynastic terms (excluding the ideology of Dynasticism, Darwinism, which merely asserts dynastic will to power anyway) would be a historical mistake. And the present situation seems to be amenable to enough control, via information, to maintain a degree of stability and ensure further profit.

I agree with you that there is already an Exit in play here. You have already exited when you look down through a one-way viewing platform, when a thousand shells stand between your wealth and the public, when you are not an outsider to black budgets or the millions of classified documents, and when you do not ever have to remain in the physical proximity of the people for long.

Despite the initially stated affinities, I wonder why, being in such a position, one would care about the ‘exit’ of the people. NRx marks itself as populist by very virtue of not being a clan born from war or business. And cryptography would reduce the hold on the populace and the ability to manage the situation, perhaps setting the current volatile situation loose, and thus threatening your own exit.

But dynasties are few and the Deep State is big and doesn’t it seem like people with real pathei-mathos would be increasingly repelled by the delusional ugliness of the demos and the government it evokes for itself. So perhaps those with less of a stake but who are still involved might be amenable. That’s the majority.

And I think many drawn to intelligence are drawn by wanting to be involved in uncompromising Reality. By wanting to know and be involved. This seems similar to the instinct that NRx proclaims, in a more corrupted and less believable form. NRx is unfortunately paradoxical, in that it proclaims elitism whilst being constrained by the need to be public, and to be a form that those in need of an intellectual role in public can remain attached to. Its warping by this engagement seems to involve tensions that, if resolved, would make it far more attractive to the audience we’re discussing. They’re not irresolvable, but NRx’s current populism and twitterism do seem to constrain it, in the eyes of Reality, to being a propaganda vehicle rather than a beacon to be attracted to because of affinity.

So, I suppose that my only small difference from you here would be to suggest that you’re aiming at Deep State people on the fringe, not at leaders or owners considering their institution’s destiny. Given need-to-know and compartmentalization, that limits prospects. But why not try.

Otherwise, this whole occultic system dynamics theme is really alluring. You always seem to verge into violently progressive, visionary territory when at your most seductive. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising. Perhaps the association with the middle-class right pulls people in, but it does seem to constrain the capacity of your vision to appeal to the really catalytic. Those whose adventuring spirits and lust are most afflicted by the leftist public sphere’s constraints perhaps won’t be drawn to the wails of the rejected which echo through NRx’s halls. Stars have bigger Games. Then again, I don’t know what you’re actually doing here. So the above might not matter. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to your highest priority audience and what you want them to do about having read you.

It’s painful to watch you guys twist around. You could start by investigating what goes on at the Bohemian Grove annual summer meetings. The deep government is occultism, as practiced by powerful families, expressed through Freemasonry (study the French Revolution). Check out the Frankist movement and Karl Marx’s associations. Read Fire in the Minds of Men by James Billington, Proofs of a Conspiracy by John Robison. Read Eustace Mullins. The historical line is Illuminism gets renamed as Communism by Karl Marx, and Communism is financed by a few Jewish Wall Street Bankers. Read the history of the Rothschild family.

Socialism isn’t Protestantism, it’s occultism at the highest levels. The leading occult families of Europe migrated to the U.S. in colonial times and established their influence in masonic lodges. They are still exercising “deep power.”

Check out Madame Blavatsky’s influence. The “New Age” promoted around the 1970s, along with Cultural Marxism, was recycled nineteenth century masonic occultism. It is the reigning philosophy of the New Age network, which expresses as a centralized power source inside the United Nations.Check out Agenda 21. Check out Fritz Springmeier and monarch mind control. This will get you started. Moldbug is a bad starting point, but anti-enlightenment is the right track.

The right history to study is the history of occultism and secret societies.That’s your deep government.